Contents

Personality

Initially Eric displayed a shy and quiet persona as well as an admiration for classmate Holly. After absorbing Clark's powers he became far more confident and was evidently pleased by the plethora of praise he received for recovering Chloe's laptop.

Powers and Abilities

Eric using super strength.

After "leeching" Clark Kent's powers, Eric received all the abilities that Clark had manifested at the age of fifteen, though he did not display all of them. Though he possessed them for a brief time he became reasonably adept at controlling them. Eric's unrestrained rage arguably made him even more powerful than Clark, who nearly always kept his emotions and powers in check.

Solar battery - After absorbing Clark's abilities, Eric became able to absorb, store and metabolize solar energy to fuel his powers.

Super strength - After stealing Clark's abilities, Eric became extremely strong, so absurdly so that he could easily overpower and kill humans without effort. He could launch humans great distances, could toss cars around, and was unstoppable unless kryptonite was used on him.

Invulnerability - After stealing Clark's abilities, Eric became extremely durable, and couldn't be hurt at all by humans or weapons. A thief tried stabbing him with a knife, but the blade completely shattered off of Eric's hand.

Super speed - After stealing Clark's abilities, Eric could move so fast that he only appeared as a blur.

Weaknesses

After absorbing Clark's powers, Eric also possessed Clark's weakness to Kryptonite as exposure to it induced similar nausea and pain to that felt by Kryptonians. His inexperience with Clark's powers also meant that he lacked Clark's practice, allowing the human Clark to take Eric by surprise in a manner that Clark would not have fallen for (As well as the more dangerous shortcoming of his lack of restraint in combat where Clark would have held back to avoid causing serious harm). Eric's rage also proved to be a major weakness in that he would act instinctively and without thought, allowing Clark to lure him into the presence of a Kryptonite fragment.

Season One

Eric finds meteor rocks.

Eric was a quiet, shy student at Smallville High with a crush on a beautiful blond girl named Holly. He was taking a geology class taught by his overbearing, abusive (both physically and verbally) father Mr. Summers. During a field trip, Eric wandered away. Clark found him standing in the edge of a dam, the protector barrier was shocked by a lightning and Eric fell down. Clark grabbed him as he fell, but was struck by lightning at the same time. Eric was holding a bag with a meteor rock in it and Clark's Kryptonianpowers were transferred to him.

Eric used his powers far more openly than Clark ever did. When he thwarted a purse-snatcher, Chloe gave him the nickname "Super Boy" in her first byline in the Smallville Ledger. However, Eric soon became violent and unpredictable.

His father wanted him to submit to tests, his mother was afraid of him and Holly rejected him. At school, Clark stepped in to stop him from attacking Holly's boyfriend, Brent. Eric threw him thirty feet and Clark had to go to the hospital to have his ribs bandaged. When the sheriff came to question him regarding the incident, he tore the street apart in a rage.

Clark takes his powers back from Eric.

Clark realized that, unlike himself, Eric did not have a supportive family and thus could not handle the responsibility that came with his powers and thus sought to reclaim them. Clark guessed that if Eric had his abilities, he also had his weaknesses. He asked to borrow Lana Lang's meteor rock necklace in an attempt to subdue Eric. As Clark attacked Eric with the necklace, Eric attacked Clark with a live power line. The resulting bolt of electricity reversed the original process.

The three of them worked together to defeat Clark when Clark broke into Belle Reeve in an attempt to rescue Lex Luthor. McNulty provided the meteor rock, Ian used it to subdue Clark and Eric leeched Clark's powers again. However, when Eric attacked Ian due to his arrogant belief that he no longer needed anyone else now that Clark's powers were his once again, killing Ian in the process, Clark recovered and subdued Eric, using the same meteor rock that had been used against him earlier to restore his powers.

Appearances

Trivia

Eric Summers was mentioned in Season Seven's Wrath, when Clark experienced a similar power transferral with Lana Lang, although in this case Lana merely absorbed part of Clark's powers rather than completely taking Clark's abilities.

Eric's present whereabouts are unknown: presumably he is still in the mental hospital.

Both times Eric has appeared, the band 'Staind' have had a song of theirs played in each episode. They are 'Fade' in Leech and 'So Far Away' in Asylum

Eric is played by Shawn Ashmore, who is the twin brother of Aaron Ashmore who played Jimmy Olsen in later seasons of the show.

For a time, fans assumed that Eric was the show's version of the comic villain Parasite due to his ability to absorb Clark's powers, but this was proven false when Rudy Jones appeared in the Season Eight episode Injustice.

The power transfer appears to be permanent so one can assume that, had Clark not reacquired his powers, Eric could have held and developed them independently.

Eric was either the first or second human to ever gain Kryptonian powers in history (depending on how one counts Lindsey Harrison, as she was taken by Jor-El 12 years before Eric gained Kryptonian powers, but it's unknown when Jor-El gave Lindsey her powers).